Fondest Greetings To You All . . .

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my blog! I'm IamErik771. Some of you may know me (and my infamous green text) from various Phantom-related online forums, or perhaps even from FanFiction.net. I've been a "Phantom Phan" for a while now, and so I decided to start up this blog as a way to keep in touch with others who love the Phantom's story. To start things off, I suppose it would be best to dedicate this post to the epic tale of how my obsession began. *clears throat*

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . wait, wrong story. My first real encounter with POTO was in my sophomore year of high school, in the spring of 2004. (Yeah, yeah . . . now you have a rough estimate of how old I am.) I was in the school band (as a clarinetist), and that year, the band would be taking a spring break trip to New York and Washington, D.C. I knew from the start that I wouldn't be able to go, but noticed that one of the things on the itinerary was to see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. All I knew about Phantom was that it had been a silent film in the 1920s starring Lon Chaney – I think just about everyone with any interest in classic films has at least seen photos of Lon as Erik – and I assumed it was simply a monster movie. So I was a bit curious about how they could have possibly made a musical based on a horror movie, especially a silent one!

For whatever reason, though, I didn't feel compelled to look for any information on the story or the musical . . . but then in March, a couple weeks before the trip was to take place, my band teacher decided to play the original London cast recording of the show for the class (accompanied by the libretto and photos from George Perry's book) so that we could see what it was all about. I was spellbound by the music and the story (and could tell that most of my classmates felt the same way), and suddenly felt quite disappointed that I wouldn't be going. The day before all my classmates would be off to New York, I randomly decided to check out my school library, and found that they had a copy of Gaston Leroux's original novel. I checked it out, read through it in a couple hours, and was hooked . . . so I kept checking it out and rereading it until the school year ended, and even did a book report on it for English class. XD

Around the middle of summer vacation, I randomly began to wonder if there was a movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical – after all, lots of other well-known musicals had been made into films. I looked around online and, much to my amazement, found out that although there wasn't one already, there soon would be. In my quest to find out everything I could about it, I stumbled onto a little page called PhantomFans.net (which is sadly no longer with us). There, I found a community of people who were quite well-versed in POTO and helped me find out about lots of other versions of the story. The site also led me to discover other Phantom forums like the Tiki Lounge, PhansOnline, and Le Phorum (which have all mysteriously vanished), as well as the still-active-and-thriving The Phantom's Opera and Deserted Phans. Through POTO, I've also made many great friends and had my musical tastes expanded quite dramatically.

So anyway, I'm starting up this blog so I can have a place to consolidate my Phantom-related posts, entries, and other stuff. I'll be posting my thoughts and opinions about various versions, reviews of new productions/casts/etc. that I get to see, and possibly more. Everyone reading this who loves the Phantom's story, whether you call yourself a "fan" or a "Phan," and no matter what versions you like or dislike, feel free to comment on anything at all! Just keep it civil and respectful, and we'll all be happier for it. ^_^


I remain your obedient servant,
I.A.E.